Thursday, 31 January 2013

It has been a while, as many things have changed recently,
and I’ve felt my passion pretty much dry up.This has made it quite difficult to blog, certainly to be
interesting.I’ve tried catching up with
a few old chums, my word for bloggers who’ve inspired me and probably don’t
know that I exist.C’est la vie!Turns out, the inspiration that I needed came
not from the community, but from YouTube.

Today, I’d like to talk about video games and the expression
“Blast from the Past.”The origin of the
expression lies in radio communications, as radio DJs would announce an old
favorite song with this as its epitaph.It heralds something familiar, and something can potentially transport
you back to t-hat distant time and place.It’s by convention a positive experience.

Retrogaming is a subculture of the larger gaming community, focused
on older games from the way things were in the bygone ages, typically arcade
games, but I contend the same applies if, like myself, you background is a
little more “four shades of grey” (that’s an epitaph that references the
Nintendo Gameboy, by the way).

And as to what brought about this emotional surge
today?I was searching online for
victory music from recent games that I have cleared, reviewing my “score,” if
you will, when I figured I would search for a YouTube video of Kirby’s 20th Anniversary.The video itself is nothing special, Kirby
walking a victory lap with series regulars, all from Kirby’s Return to Dreamland, flying in the background.Backgrounds change, implying movement.New instrumental arrangements of the first
victory song play continuously.The
credits roll, in this version, all in Japanese.Then some small things change, and I’m floored, defenceless.

The song remains the same, but the arrangement is
unmistakably Gameboy.Give the video a
watch if you fancy.

When this happens, I am floored, tearing just a bit but
unable to look away at the smiling, goofy faces of Kirby’s cast of friends (or
are they breakfast?) waving goodbye.No,
wait.Until we meet again.This is a 20 year old franchise, you understand.And I’ve been with them, and they with me,
for all of that time.And this scene
sets such a warmth in the heart as cannot be measured, a cheer that cannot be
described.And for a moment, the mind
clears, and all is well with the world.

And then there is the coming down, the sense that I must be
really messed up.This is a blog about
the hobby of video gaming, and a post that is all about feeling so good about hearing
a 20 year old victory theme.And then
there is the lonely thought; no DJ will announce this on any radio, as only my
fellow gen NES gamers would get the reference.This is our song: okay fine, Nintendo’s song and Koji Kondo’s
composition, but we get to borrow if as long as we don’t infringe on profitable
copyright, blah, blah, it lives in the hearts of Kirby fanatics.And how does it feel to be a fanatic of a
fictional pink cream puff?Kind of
weird, actually.

Ironically, the song is supposed to be a kind of pledge from
Nintendo.It is a way of saying “Thanks
for 20 years,” and “Stay with us! We’ll be back!”It’s a way of saying that Kirby is special to
them too.Grown men drawing their joy
from a fictional universe where everything is smiling, colorful.Happy.One could say that I’ve experienced pressure to engage more in the real
world, while the gaming worlds beckon home, to where I’ve always been happy.

Thursday, 17 January 2013

I’m ever remise to have let you
guys down again.Uncle Jack’s funeral
was lovely, btw.

So projects completed.

The first project I
decided to undertake was Missile Command, abbreviated MissiCommand because of
the short character strings for titles in Wario Ware DIY.The choice turned out to be a very bad one,
as all kinds of compromises suddenly became necessary; I couldn’t find any sort
of stand in for tracers, and several efforts to give the user the ability to
aim the interceptors failed.I can’t
find anyway for the player to input coordinates at all!I knew that the scope of the project, the
available sprites and resources, would sharply limit my options, but I plowed
ahead and delivered the best version that I could.I ended up creating three.

The first version has
the missiles track in on one city from all directions with random starting
places and random drop times.It did a
fair job of replicating the “attack from all sides” sense of the arcade game.I got around aiming by giving the player as
many interceptors as incoming missiles; the challenge to the player is to
simply tap to fire all of the interceptors before any missile reaches the
city.This is easy enough at normal
speed, and a dreaded challenge at high speed, so it kept the complexity down
and kept the focus on the shallow Wario Ware experience.It did not sufficiently replicate Missile
Command, though, so I went back in to try again.

Version two was a linear increase
in complexity.It added four invading
missiles and challenged the player to tap the interceptors spread around the
screen.It added nothing to the depth,
and so I didn’t like it.

Version three added a second city
and collected the four interceptors together, making the user interface
streamlined.No need to tap around looking
for the interceptor bases with 6 seconds or less to react – they were all
together. With two cities, the tracking
missiles concept had dried up; players only needed one city to survive, and had
a decent chance to save both.Missiles
still dropped from random start locations at random times, but now they simply
dropped (moved downwards). I tried once more to give the player the ability to
input coordinates, even trying to create a cross-hair object to move around and
have the interceptors track it.I gave
up when I realized that there simply was not the time to move it and aim
anyway!Interceptors tracked missiles,
and that was the only way this was going to fly.I’d fallen pretty far from the source
inspiration, but it was time to move on.

The next project was Space
Invaders, but initially the marching in space formation that is so iconic of
the game escaped me.I programmed a
roaming action for the few space invaders that WWDIY’s object limits would give
me, and programmed a tank with a reloading upwards mounted gun.Perhaps the most damning result was the
difficulty: this game approaches impossible for the six seconds Wario Ware
allows.The second was a bug that still
now is unsolvable – it’s almost as if Wario Ware loses the switch information for the
bullet – it randomly fails to reload, and when that happens, the game is over
fast for the player.

Though inauthentic, the game
captures much of the difficulty of space invaders, and punishes players who do
not carefully watch the enemy for their next attack.I found tapping the shields to move the tank
cute, but oddly less intuitive than including those awful iOS buttons attached
to the tank.

Wishing to try this
again, I recreated most of the game for Centipedes.The fast game gives the players three passes
in front of their guns to kill the Centipedes.I wasn’t satisfied with the random wandering of the Space Invaders, so I
tried to use hidden objects to direct the centipede on its course.This almost didn’t come together, as DIY only
gives five possible scripts, all of which need to be used for collisions with
the direction objects or the player and bullets. Then inspiration struck: why
not use the timing function to move the directions to another spot?I’d need scripts on the direction objects,
but I had them to spare there.This eleventh
hour work-around saved the project, and gave a game that closely replicated
Centipede.Players still only had six
seconds to act, but those six seconds could now be focused on aiming and timing
a shot.This is the best work yet, for
what it means.

So there is my hard work.I hope I didn’t get anyones’ hopes up for
this.These are, in the end, just my own
unskilled and often flailing efforts to build a game to a certain design within
the Wario Ware DIY rules.Be sure to let
me know in the comments if you can think of a good design challenge that helps
learners like myself.Until next time.

Monday, 14 January 2013

So the New Year drags on, as it does for me in this full
time job.I’ve managed to steal an odd
moment or two to dig back into gaming, and I’ve become quite surprised at the
odd choice for my hobby.

I’ve dug up Wario Ware DIY, a game not too far old, but one
I became angry with because of its limitations, and started “coding” a
collection of the old arcade classics.I’m
going to use today’s blog to ramble a bit about what made these old games so
good, what Wario Ware can do to realize them, and how I’ve struggled, and I
think even grown, trying to recreate them.

First a bit about Wario Ware DIY.I put “coding” in quotes because all of the coding
is done for you.WWDIY is a masterwork
in limiting the communication line to something pretty close to ‘just what I
want to say’ in machine language.This
lets the user focus on the assets, typically the art and animation of a game,
the music, and the design, or putting it all together.I’ve tried coding before and you’ll hear much
of my hesitation to try it again.

There are strict limits though.Specifically, WWDIY can only make the six
second microgames that fit Wario Ware, a harsh enough limit, but one that keeps
the user from attempting any projects that are too big.It also, much more maddeningly, limits the
game designs to one and only one input, tap.Want to use the DS buttons?How
about the microphone?Want to drag and
draw on the touch screen?You cannot
program any of that in game.This
restriction feels the most discomforting of all.Further, I keep finding labor saving actions
that I should be able to do, like copy code in many instances, or change the
size of artwork.When
Nintendo/Intelligent Systems set out to define everything for you, they clearly
missed some ideas, and doing without hurts the experience.

Honestly, a truly painful part of the software
is the hard cap: each object can have only five events (for things like the die
event, the create event, the “at the specified time” event).This wouldn’t be so bad if you had only a
full set of Boolean operators, otherwise known as the “AND” and “OR”
keywords.They let you mix operations; for
instance “AND” is included and its event only triggers if all of the noted
conditions are true.There is no “OR,”
so each event has to be included individually.This makes collision events impossible; you could make a hero and three
enemies, but the hero may not have the three events to spare to die at the
hands of each of them.

Shoot, that’s already 500 words.I’ve only been describing the limits I’ve had
to work within!I think I’ll make the
post for tomorrow all about showing off.Rest assured, you’re only missing out if you like to laugh at hilarious
failure.Until then!

Thursday, 10 January 2013

It has been a while.Work has kept me busy, and even time off has felt full.Still, I’ve taken quite of bit of time
re-evaluating the blog.The audience
goes in unison: “Oh no, not this again.”

The blog’s main topic is gamer culture, and despite a lot of
recent stories on this subject, just off the top of my head, women’s issues in
game, yet another sleazeball stalking women in
online games just to drive them out of “his” territory, the new flare up of
public “inquiry” regarding violence in media, including the destruction of the offending material, and the
corresponding call to arms of video gamers
determined to protect our beloved games, and every story on the net you could
think of on the evils of gamers of every sort.

(update: Southington Conn has since cancelled
their game burning plans, claiming that they already have created a big enough
scene.I’m inclined to agree).

I’ve tried several
times to sew up a blog article about these events that would add something to
the discussions at hand, but they always came out bland, like I had nothing to
contribute.And then, it hit me.None of this stuff is what I want to blog
about.Most of it isn’t even
tangentially about the gaming I love, mostly dealing with online or shoot’em up
games, and the general culture that is lining them up for a take-down.I’m going to come off as a old fogey for
saying it, but the type of gaming I most enjoy is partisan to Nintendo, which
shares some of these problems, but is usually thought of last in these challenges.

So, here’s the only blog post I can write, and I’m going to
blow off my supposed responsibilities to other types of gamers on the Internet
to write a feel good newsie, a report on all of the good things recent and on
the horizon.

The biggest recent news is the launch of the WiiU, which I
have yet to purchase.(Critics: How can
you be a hardcore Nintendo fan without a WiiU?)I’ve been busy, much too much so for a new console, and the 3DS has been
a great 30 minute time waster. It’s also
been great for ducking into and out of the fictional worlds it builds swiftly
and cleanly, a godsend for stress relief.But I haven’t sworn off buying a WiiU; Pikmin 3 and Lego City Undercover
both look like must haves!

As a 3DS owner, the best news was revealed just the other
day: new Pokémon games are confirmed October, Pokémon
X and Y respectively.I’ve fallen behind
again; I played and loved Blue and Red for the Gameboy Color, then rented, but
never bought Gold.I never did follow up
on Pokémon until White, just three years back.It was another classic, and well worth the time investment, which coincidentally,
was about 160 hours, greater than Monster Hunter Tri and Wii Fit Plus (separately,
not both together).Despite craving Pokémon
White or Black 2 and Pokémon Conquest, I just never found the time for such a
large scale RPG.I wonder if I can
change that for next October?

Nintendo Power ended its long, long run just this New
Years.December was its last issue.The end of the era prompted a lot of emotional
farewells.I once subscribed, but only
for a year; I didn’t have much money when younger, and soon wondered at the
wisdom of spending money to read about video games that could otherwise have
been spent on buying and playing video games.

Still, not all of the news is sad, as the full might (or so
it seems) of Nintendo press agents in North America have come out to support a
new publication, called Nintendo Force.So far it looks a bit like rushing into the
fire zone.Nintendo Power didn’t just morph
into an e-mag.It dried up, suggesting
word from higher up on its closure.While I certainly appreciate the passion Nintendo Force brings to the
table, can they really fill the breach? And pay the bills?Is this gamble just crazy?Nintendo Force’s debut issue is due out in
just a few days.Should I support this,
which appears to be a true community effort (just what I was looking for,
incidentally) themed on Nintendo (bonus)?

My money happens to be spoken for this month, for as of
January 25th, 2013, the formal translation of the Hyrule Historia goes on sale.This hardcover tome features developer
stories and memories creating the many games of the Legend of Zelda, and
developer concept art.There is a
timeline effort from Nintendo besides, but I consider the effort to be
wasted.Don’t insult us Nintendo; we
know that there is no timeline connecting the LoZ games together, and there
never was.We know this, we appreciate
how that lets you focus on telling better stories, and we appreciate it.Still, having an unwanted feature won’t stop
me from enjoying the rest of the book!

And that’s just about all of the Nintendo news I know of for
January.It’s a full month, even without
the baggage coming from outside.Still,
it’s also a little exciting.This is
time Nintendo seems the most alive, and the fan base is reciprocating.

The phrase Call to Arms here
references the majority of what I’m finding on the net anymore.Joe Biden, VP to Barack Obama, called all
parties to participate in a dialog
on the violence.Here is Kris
Graft of Gamasutra suggesting that should Game representatives even attend
or send an attendant, it would compromise gaming’s place as would an admission
of guilt.And here is one articulate
gamer, Kamicasey,
responding that failing to speak up for gaming is the equivalent of letting
freaks like the NRA blame
gaming, the makers of games and people who play them, effectively defining
what gaming is all about.Kamicasey and
Kris Graft between them make a good point, though divided on the Joe Bidden
invitation: We need to stand up for this medium, and not let outsiders,
especially those with an agenda, define gaming.Video gaming may have its own learning curve to go through, and Casey
Lynch at IGN does a nice job framing that work.

About Me

Greetings,
This blog focuses on the creative ideas swimming about the head of one Canadian. Themes focus on video games, role playing games (or the pen and paper variety), and literary themes. Honestly, I see it more as a chance to write than anything else, but stick around and we'll see if I can't find a few themes that'll appeal to you guys.